


Something Wild

by satin_doll



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:05:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9530765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/satin_doll/pseuds/satin_doll





	

_I saw something wild_

_Its innocence and freedom_

_Knew no rules or boundaries_

_It did whatever it wanted to do_

_I loved to watch it run_

_It mostly kept its distance_

_But whenever it came near me_

_I felt wild too_

_And when it wasn’t around_

_All I felt was tame and bound..._

The first shock of his beauty was like being hit in the face with a bucket of icy water. It left her shaken, trembling with a desire so deep it frightened her. One brief meeting and she was lost.

He often shocked her after that. His behavior was outrageous, constantly bending and breaking (if not outright murdering) all the social rules and restrictions she’d learned in her life - ones she occasionally had such a difficult time understanding herself. It was fire, lightning, and it fascinated, drew her inexorably and dangerously to him.

_Ah, but how could I resist_

_I am only human_

_How could I not want you_

_When you looked at me that way_

_The fire in your eyes_

_I hoped was burning for me_

_I couldn’t take all that temptation_

_For another day…_

She tried, of course, every way she could think of to be near him whenever possible. All the little tricks and games she’d ever read about, all the usual flirts and outright blunt approaches were ignored, rebuffed, danced away from. And then he would come to her with a request, using blatant manipulations to get what he wanted if she resisted. He would flatter and cajole one moment, then humiliate and insult in the next. It hurt. But the thrill of being with him, even for a brief time, the taunt of those extraordinary eyes when he needed something from her - all her resistance, all common sense deserted her. 

Gradually, as she learned his ways, learned what to expect from his strange behavior, she began to see something else. He was not a “sociopath”, as he so loved to label himself. There were reasons for the way he was, and she began to suspect that a good deal of it was simple self-preservation. It was how he survived a world that hated anything different, that hated knowledge and truth. In a world that thrived on lies and illusions, someone honest and forthright, who pointed out the fallacies and inconsistencies of those illusions, would be quickly singled out and either punished or done away with. The world is brutal in its elimination of direct truth. 

She began to fall in love, real love, the kind that leads one to sacrifice oneself, if need be, for the other. She discovered that there was nothing she would not do for him, even if he never returned one iota of caring for her. She _saw_ him, knew him, knew what he truly was deep in his heart, and she would do anything to aid and protect that.

He saw her, also. He knew the effect he had on her, understood that she would do anything for him. He knew what he was doing would hurt her, that it was dangerous for her. Anyone close to him would be burned. The trick was knowing who to sacrifice at what time. He never simply threw anyone away. There were those who could withstand a tremendous amount, and they were valuable; they needed to be preserved if at all possible. They burned with their own inner fire. They were the ones who could tolerate him the most. Sometimes it was difficult to get through the layers of grunge over their precious light, but he always tried. 

He tried the most with her. He needed her, needed someone who truly saw _him_ and not just his outer shell. The time would come, he knew, when she would get too close and be in danger of annihilation, and he would have to truly push her away in order to save her. He locked his sadness at this away, deep in that dark corner of himself, as he did most feeling. 

_You were so beautiful_

_From where I stood_

_So I chased you down and held you_

_As close as I could_

_That’s when the fire turned cold_

_Maybe you’re not supposed to hold_

_Something wild…_

The dance went on for years. When she’d thought he was gone for good, she’d tried to forget him, tried to get on with her life. It wasn’t the same. She missed the heat, the uncertainty of their dance. Push me/pull you, come close/go away. Most of all, she missed him - his physical presence, the essence of him in her life.

When he came back, it all went to hell.

_I saw something wild and free_

_Why couldn’t I just let it be…_

He did try. But what he was, what he did - she would never come back from being near him when his life exploded. All he could do was push her away from him with all his strength and hope she would survive it.

There were times, when he was forced into silence or solitude, when the sadness threatened to extinguish him, when all he could see was the bleakness and despair of being so totally alone. Those times the longing overtook him and the war inside - between wanting so badly and the need to save - threatened to destroy everyone and everything he’d ever touched.

But in the end, because of what he was and what he did, the need to _save,_ any way and at any cost, would win.

_That’s when the fire turned cold_

_I almost made ice out of gold_

_Maybe you’re not supposed to hold_

_Something wild…_

She would have been shocked to know how he saw her. She would have vehemently denied the truth of herself as he knew it. He had never met anyone as strong as she was, anyone who could dance around convention so prettily and then discard it in an instant so easily. Even That Woman, who so prided herself on her “misbehaving”, could never stand up to the pressures and then flit so quickly, without effort, to doing whatever was needed at the moment. It doesn’t take much to live in one world all the time; to navigate more than one, and do it with such grace, was truly extraordinary. It took a certain wildness of heart, a depth of understanding, a moral flexibility, that very few people contained. Most would be shocked to know that this quality even existed. It was what he saw that very first day in Molly.

Sweet, awkward, mousy Molly Hooper. She was something else. She was something wild. 


End file.
